this week on "our world with black enterprise" history has been made again as barack obama remains president of the united states by winning one of the most important elections in american history. we take a look at what his administration will look like in our community over the next four years. that's what's going on in "our world" up next.

congratulations, mr. president. >> four years ago, the obama presidency started with high expectations for change in american politics. in his first 100 days in office president obama enjoyed huge approval ratings. yet despite the rescue of the

auto industry, pulling the nation from the brink of the worst economic crisis since the great depression, and a successful pursuit of osama bin laden -- >> the united states has conducted an operation that killed osama bin laden, the leader of al qaeda, and a terrorist who's responsible for the murder of thousands. >> the president's support slowly slipped away. republican presidential candidate mitt romney claimed he could balance the budget, avoid raising taxes and provide additional billions of dollars for defense. he even appropriated obama's slogan of change. >> a real recovery and real change. >> but democrats criticized romney for flip-flopping and for not offering details on how he would accomplish his goals or even pay for him. >> backing off the $5 trillion tax cut is really amazing. for someone who follows politics that's excruciating pivot to make. >> in the end this was one of the closest elections in history. yet despite a slow start when the ballots were finally counted president obama was re-elected

winning ohio, new hampshire, colorado, iowa and nevada. >> tonight in this election you, the american people, reminded us that while our world has been hard, while our journey has been long, we have picked ourselves up. we have fought our way back. and we know in our hearts that for the united states of america the best is yet to come. >> david webb founder or of key part 355 and a write for the "new york daily news" and a political analyst and a professor of sociology at georgetown university and a prolific author. thank you all for being here. this has been an amazing week and a historic week. president obama was re-elected president of the united states. david, tough week for you? >> no, not really.

look, it's not. look, our system has worked. americans have spoken out. they've made their choice for the president. that's a peaceful transfer of power, something we do better than any other country in the world. now it comes down to the policy. we're saying mark you've known me a long time. it's what are the policies that are going to fix our economy which is the foundation of this nation? i disagree with some of the president's approaches. but there are issues even in the republican party where they have caused some of the problems. and instead of going after solutions we're having a fight in washington. >> we're going to talk about policy in a minute. i want to talk to you first, michael. you were there. you were at the epi center of this transfer of power. what was it like to be in chicago? >> it was exciting. i mean, people were talking about the enthusiasm gap. i said look. i do a lot of renewal of vows as a minister. and the second time around of course it's different. you know more about him. you know about her. you're a little bit more jaded. you ain't getting flowers every day. but the bill's being paid, baby got shoes and everybody good. so that's the renewal of vows

obama. look, i'm out here doing my thing. and it was tremendous. it was electric. it was the understanding that this is a real choice in america between two different options, one of which is selfish and redistributing wealth upward to those who are wealthy, and another one that is concerned about the poor and at least about the middle class. so in that sense, people felt that hey, we ratified today the fundamental principles of democracy, not just giving it to obama. but you got to admit, 17 presidents have been re-elected. the first black man getting re-elected, that's extraordinary. >> it is. but jelena,there's something not just extraordinary but unexpected about this. this summer people said this might not happen. for the last two years people have said the economy's too bad, there aren't enough jobs, all these things are happening. there's no way president obama could be re-elected under these circumstances. how did it happen? >> i think the main story no one is talking about is the ground game. while the media was focused on polling and the unemployment

rate, barack obama's field team led by amazing jeremy byrd who i hope is taking a nap right now started two years ago. and in some of these battle grounds have been there since 2007. even going back to the last election. and so they've just set up shop in so many towns and cities and precincts across the country in battle ground states. and they turned out the vote. they expanded the electorate by registering new voerts. the obama campaign focused on doing that and expanding the electorate and turning out early voters. the key was that obama went into tuesday ahead in the battle ground states. so mitt romney had to win by large margins and he wasn't able to do that. >> so david, there's the ground game as jelena mentioned butted video that leaked out of mitt romney saying disparaging things about 47% of the american public. did that ultimately damn him? >> that didn't damn him but that hurt him with those independents because of the way it was done. look, it was more than a gap. it was used as a political

weapon against him. jelena, however, hit a number of the key points about this. ground game when you look at the voting breakouts, barack obama was able to hold onto those that voted for him in 2008. and that was key to this. and in the battle ground states was able to make up ground and take the lead. the republican ground game wasn't as effective. people didn't vote in the end because they were worried about who was getting money more or redistributing up or down as michael said. they were voting on who they thought would be better for their situation. >> yeah. i don't disagree. but the point is when i said about redistrict wealth upward they're talking about their business. the elite was deeply invested. white people would not won by obama in overwhelming numbers. in fact, mitt romney won the most white people ever not to have won the presidency because of the fact that obama understands the demographic shifts in america and that the vast majority of people who were

voting, the latinos, the interests of all of those people that i've mentioned, were not reflected very well in mitt romney. and then the disparagement of the white working class with the the 47%. he made them symbolically black. >> that wasn't a target we actually at least have to be factual in that. he was talking to a group. he made a statement. he went out and apologized for the fact he was talking about who wouldn't vote for him. let's face it, the truth is each candidate has a group that won't vote for him. so if barack obama were to make a similar -- let me finish my point. if barack obama were to make a similar statement, i'd take it into context. but i don't want to get caught in that. the right analysis here is who voted and why they voted for the president. you're right about hispanics. they were about 10%. they're a growing block. they're an important block to play to. the country's majority white. 78% white. when you look at the issues that i self-identified according to the census bureau. so they're going to be not as big a factor in the swings whether it's romney or obama. >> we're going to take a break. when we come back i want to talk

about what's going to happen now that to use michael's analogy, now that the wedding is over. i want to know what the marriage is going to look like. stay right here we'll be back with more "our world with black enterprise." >> there were differences of opinion ideologically before obama. he's not the first democrat. bill clinton was seen as the hitler with wheels.

thank you for believing all the way. through every hill, through every valley. you lifted me up the whole way. and i will always be grateful

for everything that you've done and all the incredible work that you've put in. welcome back. we've been talk about the election and what led up to president obama's historic victory. i want to talk about what's going to happen next. for the last four years people have said there's nothing but gridlock. republicans won't play ball with democrats. democrats haven't made any advances. will things get better now? david, let me ask you first. >> welcome to gridlock, america. because we have two competing views of how we should move forward in america. with the congress, especially with the difference between the fiscal conservatives and those that believe in more of a centralized, big government approach which is barack obama's core when it comes to his belief in the system. the states are what need to get involved in this. and they're not going to. so this president is going to have to reach across the aisle. the first two years he had congress. he had the senate. he had the house. he took one major initiative. >> when you said the president did not reach across the aisles

the first time effectively? >> he didn't reach across effectively. on the other side there was no compromise from republicans on certain issues. >> what kept barack obama from becoming an effective governor if you will of the country was not his inability to get away from his own party. it was the inability of the republicans to acknowledge that this man was legitimately president and had something good to say. he was willing to work to the consternation of his base so much witit republicans who rebuffed his efforts. and i think that we have to be honest about. >> the voting record is completely opposite to that when you look at the votes that were cast in all of the debates in the barack obama presidency. the votes were by blew dog democrats, democrats who object today policies. i'm not saying republicans didn't block. that's the nature of our system. michael is throwing out assertions. i'm telling anyone watching they can go look at the voting record. [ overlapping speakers >> that's not supposed to be the nature of the system. you're not supposed to need 60 votes for everyone single piece of legislation. >> i never said you did.

[ overlapping speakers >> republicans have made that the case. and the truth is that barack obama did not have 60 for two years. he had it for 14 weeks. because al franken's race went for a recount. specter switched parties. he had a very short amount of time. [ overlapping speakers >> which is necessary but shouldn't be necessary. >> you know what i reject? everything has to have a primary race base narrative. [ overlapping speakers >> there is an objection to policy that is the majority of the objection. [ overlapping speakers >> but jelena are there issues that are unique to a black president or are there situations, responses, tensions, anything about this particular presidency that happened because of race? >> yes. but that entire fiscal crisis we're going to deal with over the next few months, that has to do with the fact this was the first black president. obviously it's something that you can't prove, right? it's something they believe

strongly. i cannot prove it. >> it's a farce. [ overlapping speakers >> she thought concerned about the issues concerned about, george bush sold the government in record form number one. [ overlapping speakers >> the tea party did not form its functionality to the degree it did under obama under george bush. [ overlapping speakers >> just a second, dave. is it possible that the resistance didn't happen just on partisan issues? they wanted to hurt a democrat and help a republican. wasn't because he was black or white. >> we're talking about effect not intent. the intent was we're going to resist the democrats. but we've never seen the kind of feverish resistance to a president that has been manifest. if we correlate them logically, we have to say black man symbolic head of government. they went after eric holder and barack obama. that's not a coincidence.

that's part of the infrastructure ideologically speaking of the tea party they're not honest about. >> this race game, mark, as you know, i'm going to kept my calm here, pisses me off. a couple of reasons why. the objection on race was not there. that's a distraction. moody, jelena, doesn't make a decision on downgrading or ratings based on race, neither do the ratings agencies. and if you think that's the -- [ overlapping speakers >> i don't think that was her argument. [ overlapping speakers >> the debt ceiling was raised under every other president. and so we get to the black guy. all of a sudden -- [ overlapping speakers >> nothing to do with the black guy. [ overlapping speakers >> here's my point. there were differences of opinion ideologically and politically before obama. he's not the first democrat. bill clinton was seen as the hitler with wheels. the reality is that the denegration of barack obama. we're not denying what you're saying.

moody did not cite race as the predicate. the reason, the fuel, the engineering of the resistance of the republicans is driven by the fact that barack obama is a black man. and in your tea party all of those racist signs that were being held up. can you do this? go back to africa. the viciousness of those signs in the tea party. >> i want to talk about other issues on the ground about moving forward. after post-election, right? in addition to sort of what's happened. what is the strategy for recruiting black people into political parties? barack obama won't be president next time. and it's a safe bet republicans won't put up a black person as their nominee. just looking at who's in the bull pen. how will both parties approach the race question? jelena, what do you say? >> they have to do it by not alienating people of color and women and young voters. that's what the republicans -- that's where they went wrong in this election cycle. they said insensitive things about race, they said insensitive things about race, and they said -- >> certain actors within the party made those statements

that. doesn't reflect the whole party. >> that was the party platform. >> the whole party's based on one statement? then senator louise lucas is representative of the entire -- >> the republican party platform has language which is demon strablly anti-woman. it doesn't have personhood language in the republican party platform? >> what i'm hearing her say -- >> you're alienating certain segments of the american public. and you're not going to be able to win elections. so going forward i think democrats have to put forward policies that do the opposite. and reach out and do more for women. i mean, i think the number one thing i'm thinking of is the supreme court. that was really one of the bigger things that came out of this election that wasn't talked about. i think barack obama has a unique opportunity to appoint the replacement for ruth bader beginsburg. he's going to replace her with a woman obviously and a black woman.

>> he doesn't have to deal with the re-election issue. he can get away from his base as bill clinton did and he can maybe move forward to work in if you will maybe in a more centrist fashion.

welcome back to "our world." final thoughts, professor dieson

what are the key issues we should expect an obama administration to address now? >> obviously when you talk about energy, talk about environment, one of the reasons chris christie, the governor of new jersey inadvertently helped us on our side was that in fact he respected the integrity of obama's response. you talk about central go. it's not about centralized government and big government. it's about fema's responsibility to manage emergencies. let me finish. >> i'm just saying. my point is that there's a different philosophical approach. the republicans want to cut fema, outsource it. what obama did is said no, the government is responsible to those people who are victims of natural disaster. so when you talk about energy and environment, when you speak about economic policy, look. the black unemployment is at 14%. we've got to address that as an american problem. we've got to talk about the violence of inner cities and the urban situations, again that read black. but also more broadly when you think about an obama administration to shore up the health care, affordable health care act. because look, when social security began and medicare and

medicaid, that stuff didn't look like it looked 10, 15 years ago. now obama has that challenge. finally reaching across the aisle. who has reached across the aisle more than barack obama? jelena is in a bette make thing years ago? >> i do. but also i don't think it's on him. i think it's on house republicans who have to take a responsibility in governing the country. they also were electsed. i think just as michael said, yes, barack obama did reach across the aisle and they smacked his hand down every single time. that is not okay. american voters have re-elected him and kept the democrats in charge of the senate. republicans have to step up and take some responsibility. >> david, what kind of responsibility will republicans take in the next four years? what will the republican party's response be to a second obama presidency? >> first, let's have the system work as well it should. you're right. there's a third thing we're not talking about which is the senate. republicans have passed 17 bills on economy that were not taken up by harry reid. so if you put out the policies

that should be debated, and i believe they should all be debated, brought out of committee, then we should see our system work. that releases the gridlock because we as americans deserve to see that debate from our elected representatives. >> quick yes or no. do you expect that to happen? >> i expect a level of it because obama now doesn't have to deal with the re-election issue. it can get away from his base as bill clinton did. and he can maybe move forward to work in if you will maybe in a more centrist fashion. the opportunist there. will he take it is the question. >> that question will be answered for the next four years. hopefully you all come back to help us understand it. david webb, jelena maxwell, michael ed dyson thanks so much. we'll be back with "our world with black enterprise." commercial consideration provided by --

that wraps it up for this edition of "our world with black enterpri enterprise." you can find us on our web site or follow us on facebook and twitter. >> i believe we can keep the promise of our founders, the idea that if you're willing to work hard, it doesn't matter who you are or where you come from or what you look like or who you love. it doesn't matter whether you're black or white or hispanic or asian or native american or young or old or rich or poor, able, disabled, gay or straight. you can make it here in america if you're willing to try. [ cheers